Athletics and Football (extract)

RUNNING AND RUNNERS 115 for the first championship meeting settled the future of hurdle- racing byfixing upon 120 yards race with ten flights, the hurdles being 3 ft. 6 in. high, at even distances of ten yards, withfifteen yards between the start and the first hurdle, and a similar distance between the last hurdle and the finish. As soon, however, as the distance between the hurdles became stereotyped the runners were not long in finding out that in the race invented to test running and jumpingpowers in combina­ tion the more running there was, and the less jumping, the faster the time over the distance would be. Experience soon taught that three strides would take a man from hurdle to hurdle, and that he could spring off one leg and alight on the other, taking the hurdle in his stride. The result was that hurdle-racingover the recognised distance soon became a very difficult and pretty but highly artificial performance. The ' crack' hurdler takes everystride of exactlythe same length, rises exactly the same height at every jump, and moves with the regularity and precision of clockwork. Some jump off the right, some off the left, foot; in either case, when the spring is taken the front leg is jerked up enough to enable the runner to get his shin or knee over the bar; that leg then is dropped again, so as to enable him to alight on the ball of his toe ; meanwhile the hind leg is lifted in similar style over the bar and straightened at once as soon as the bar is cleared, and directly the other toe has alighted the next stride is taken almost without a pause. It will be obvious howslight a delay is caused by clearing the hurdles when it is considered that men whoare equal to little better than 12J seconds over 120 yards on the flat have covered120 yardsover ten hurdles of 3 ft. 6 in. high in 16 seconds. The sport is a pretty one, requiring great skill, speed and agility,and a ' light foot,' but wecannot help expressing a wish that in addition there might be seen other short hurdle races at meetingswhere the runners should not know the exact distance between each hurdle, and the exact height of the jump, and so would be unable to calculate the precise length of the stride and the precise amount, to the 1 2